


happily ever after

by stag_von_simp



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Affectionate Insults, And By Fluff I Mean TOOTH-ROTTING FLUFF, Angst, Blood Mentions in Chapter Four!!, Boys In Denial, Fairy Tales, Ferdibert Week 2019, Ferdinand Pining, Fluff, Friendship, Fun, High School AU, Hubert Is A Sucker, Hubert is oblivious, Kissing, M/M, Modern AU, Obsession, Or...Kind Of Angst, Or: Interpreting Romantic Feelings As a Desire For Close Friendship, Reading Aloud, Romance, Sad Attempts at Humor, Texting, Vivid Descriptions of Ferdinand's Hair, War, courting, well...not exactly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21639436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stag_von_simp/pseuds/stag_von_simp
Summary: my oneshots for ferdibert week 2019!!--> one: fairy tales--> two: modern--> three: obsession--> four: war--> five: courting
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra, Mentions of Dorothea/Edelgard
Comments: 11
Kudos: 52





	1. day one

Ferdinand’s fingers scale across the spines of every book packed into the bookcase, his index finger skating across each title with all the grace and care in the world. Eventually, his roving hand freezes, and he tears one from the shelf. “Found it,” he says, triumph billowing in his voice. He swivels a grin over his shoulder at Hubert, who feels remarkably stupid. 

Nonetheless, he nestles deeper against the wall from where he sits on the floor when Ferdinand flaps his hand, demanding he does so. He supposes Ferdinand has that effect on him: Ferdinand can lure him in with a simple perk of his lips, and Hubert dissolves, his resistance sipped from his bloodstream, but not by the oh-too familiar lips of obligation.

Ferdinand is not like Edelgard. Hubert doesn’t owe Ferdinand a thing, yet he finds himself willing to obey. The only manacles that brace his wrists are pasted there by love.

It’s strange, it’s revolting, it’s utterly  _ unbelievable.  _ And yet a smile wags at the corners of his mouth playfully, as if taunting him for being so in love.

“This is my favorite book. It is...an anthology of fables. Fairy tales, I suppose. You will simply adore it,” Ferdinand explains, rustling through the pages, eyes hooded by heavy brows and concentration. 

“I have my doubts,” Hubert admits, but his smile betrays him, leaching any credibility from his claim. “I’m really not much for yacking animals and happily-ever-afters.”

“Maybe you disliked fables before, but...I am willing to bet that I can change your perspective on them, darling.” Ferdinand says. Hubert’s eyes stab at the ceiling. “Trust me,” Ferdinand continues, words juggled by laughter. “I am nearly  _ sensational _ at telling these stories, I must say. I know exactly how to make them enticing.”

Hubert snorts, but his throat is so unaccustomed to mirth the sound chafes like a cough. “I guess I can believe that. You certainly are known to dramatize.”

“Oh, hush.” And Ferdinand’s voice sails into another chuckle, and Hubert’s heart quakes with pleasure, so forcible and  _ beyond _ him he feels as though his ribs could be spangled with bruises or  _ craters _ , for all he knows. “Here. I have found the best story to share. It is a classic, let me assure you. Not to mention one of the most hopeful. Once we reach  _ happily-ever-after _ , I am certain you will be smiling.”

Hubert swipes the offending grin from his face, clearing his throat. “I wouldn’t be certain, but only time will tell.”

“Indeed,” Ferdinand agrees, then props the book onto his lap and buries himself into it, so immersed he may as well be paddling among the plot himself. Hubert is far more invested in Ferdinand himself than the plot he chains together with his voice. His tone is languid, only spiking into intensity when the dialogue he recites demands it. His hair--the long, irrational mane of russet spirals--huddles around his face, streams knotted into a roaring sea. It dribbles down his shoulders, plasters around his eyes, which are still mere slits.

The light that soaks in through the window threads through his hair just right, and the smile on his face never questions itself. He looks sleepy, and joyous, and completely serene.

Hubert’s chest is padded with adoration for the hunched, beautiful figure slouched before him. And when Ferdinand accentuates the  _ happily-ever-after  _ and claps the book shut, as if applauding his own delivery of its nonsense, Hubert’s face is twirled into a smile he can’t combat, and not because of the  _ touching  _ story. The only sensation that dares graze his heart is his frightening, feverish love for Ferdinand.

“Aha!” Ferdinand barks, ripping Hubert from his reverie. Still, the smile printed on his face refuses to so much as chip. “So the story has reached your heart. I told you it would bring a smile to your face, and I was right.  _ Ha ha, _ ” he gloats.

Hubert folds his face, trying to startle the intrepid grin that roasts his mouth. “It has nothing to do with the damned story, and everything to do with the man who read it. The story was a waste of breath. You’re beautiful,” he stumbles, and Ferdinand’s smile strains impossibly wider--it looks like it would sting, really, to heft up all that joy--as if Hubert doesn’t gush over his beauty every day they spend together.

“Thank you,” Ferdinand mutters, voice split between a chirp and a choke. “But if you were at all listening, you must have enjoyed the tale.”

“It was okay,” Hubert allows. “You might have to reread it, though, if you wish to discuss it, seeing as I didn’t register a single word. And I may have to close my eyes.”

“Very well, you impossible man,” Ferdinand says, prying the book open once again, blustering through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for.

Hubert, true to his word, snaps his eyes shut for the second telling of the tale, even if everything inside of him wants to wrench them wide open, to never shut them again. 

(The story, in all honesty, still barely streams through his head--it’s so dull, so painfully silly, he nearly dozes off, save for the purring voice that morphs the boring words into poetry just by uttering them aloud.)

_ Happily-ever-after  _ is burbled yet again--yes,  _ burbled,  _ because Ferdinand says it with a voice laced by awe, because Ferdinand is a fool, an irresistible, adorable fool--and Ferdinand permits Hubert to blissfully open his eyes again. He does as he’s told, blinking back into the world of Ferdinand’s smile.

“You are still smiling,” Ferdinand notes. “I would consider this a victory for me.”

“The story is rubbish,” Hubert grunts. “Your voice made it tolerable.”

“There is no need to hide. I know you loved it,” Ferdinand says, then hops forward. He smears his thumb down Hubert’s face, gliding across his jawline with aching, pensive slowness. Then he pounces, slapping a kiss to Hubert’s lips, which are suddenly numb with need. “Just like I love you. Thank you for weathering through my silly story--yes, I know it is silly, especially to you. But that one meant the world to me during my youth.”

“It wasn’t  _ that  _ bad,” Hubert says, even when his mind cackles the opposite. If it were anyone else, he would even mock the story, pinch his face into a sneer and make his loathing of such pointless stories known. But it’s Ferdinand, who boils with passion for the pointlessness, and all Hubert does is tug him into his lap and dab away all the doubt on his face with his lips.


	2. day two

Ferdinand would like to testify that he  _ doesn’t  _ spend the evening waiting for the familiar shudder of his phone in his pocket with his spine bristled and taut, hope strained in his every nerve like elastic stretched too thin...but he cannot testify lies, he fears.

(Of course, he would  _ never  _ admit he’s been neglecting his textbooks in favor of his cell all night. He would  _ never  _ admit with every mouthful of tea he drenches his tongue with, the liquid curdles too early with anxiety and disappointment, intermingled into something so pleasant it’s quite nearly repulsive, quite nearly  _ horrifying _ .)

Yes, he finally succumbed today. He finally surrendered his phone number to the boy in his government class--the boy with the poise of a man, marching among aimless children, the boy with the sneer and smirk and that terrible way of hacking his every word like he’s retching acid. The boy who tickles Ferdinand’s patience like he’s strumming chords on a guitar. 

_ Hubert. _

Ferdinand’s pocket writhes like a prisoner protesting their shackles, skewering his daydreams with the force of a spear through the gut. The back of his neck springs into excited goosebumps. He nearly lunges to his feet in his adrenaline, fishing his phone from his pocket, nerves alive like electricity bumbling through circuits.

He smashes the power button on his phone. The notification that flares to life before his eyes is, of course, a text from  _ Dorothea _ .

He topples back into his chair, squabbling uselessly against the near-despair that slumps in his stomach. A sigh froths in his throat as he replies to her message--something about  _ Edelgard  _ being a  _ catch  _ or a  _ squeeze  _ or whatever Dorothea’s calling her now. Typically, he doesn’t mind her texts; in fact, ever since Dorothea relented to his friendship, he adores the messages, even if they’re normally blighted with that name  _ Edelgard.  _

But not today. 

He wracks out the sigh.

And his phone shivers right there, in his palm, blinking to light before his eyes, and a new number  _ finally  _ glitters on the screen.

_ Hey, or whatever,  _ is the message, and Ferdinand’s breath clouds into his cheeks, excitement snuggled in his stomach in a comfortable heap. He reads the words with Hubert’s drone humming in his head.

_ It’s Hubert,  _ confirms the next message. Ferdinand may squeal aloud.

When he finally twitches his fingers across the keyboard--finally summons the control to respond, after saving Hubert’s sacred number into his towering list of contacts--he believes himself to sound calm, perhaps even nonchalant, if he could ever be nonchalant:  _ Oh, is it? It took you long enough to text. Hello. _

He punctuates the message with a smiley-face. Perfect.

Then he slides his cell phone to the corner of the desk in his bedroom and funnels his focus back to the notebook splayed before him. 

Ferdinand scrawls down a sentence, then has no choice but to soothe the growl of his phone as it vibrates yet again.

Hubert. 

He’s written a simple  _ Sorry to leave you hanging. Is that what you want to hear? _

_ That will suffice,  _ Ferdinand responds, arching his lips against the grin that teases them. 

The conversation continues; this time, there’s no gnarl of silence bleeding between Hubert’s texts. Ferdinand’s fingers, gloved by sweat, can barely cease their trembling long enough for him to keep his replies steady.

He’s dimly aware that he shouldn’t be so nervous--it isn’t as though Hubert is peering over his shoulder, glowering down at every word Ferdinand shovels from his vacant mind onto the screen--but he  _ is. _

The conversation--if it can even be dignified with such a title--goes like this:

_ Hubert: So you wanted to discuss an assignment or something? _

_ Ferdinand: Er...sure. Yes. I-Is that what I told you? _

_ Hubert: Any reason you’re stuttering? And yes, that’s what you said. _

_ Hubert: I’m deleting your number once we’ve finished discussing it by the way. _

_ Ferdinand: That is hardly fair. _

_ Ferdinand: :( _

_ Hubert: Oh please. Just tell me what you need to tell me. Before I tire of you. _

_ Ferdinand: You will not tire of me. And that’s a guarantee. _

_ Ferdinand: :) _

_ Hubert: Stop making this...weird. Just tell me. _

_ Ferdinand: Um _

_ Hubert: That’s it. I should’ve known this would be a waste of time. _

_ Ferdinand: No, no, no-- _

_ Hubert: That’s enough, Ferdinand. Stop texting me. _

_ Ferdinand: You are being unreasonable. _

_ Hubert: Oh, I’M unreasonable? You refuse to just say what needs to be said, and I’M unreasonable? _

_ Ferdinand: ...Yes? _

_ Hubert: You’re incessant. I’ve got work to do. _

_ Ferdinand: :( _

And after that, the conversation ebbs into silence. Ferdinand’s phone doesn’t so much as murmur for his attention for the rest of the evening. He completes his essay without another distraction in the slightest.

But there’s  _ heat--happiness-- _ curling in his chest, somersaulting against his ribs like steam, cooking him from the inside out, and he can’t tear the grin from his face, and he barely wants to.

Sure, his attempts at captivating Hubert seemed for naught. They seemed clumsy, perhaps. He would admit that.

But he’s finally  _ attempting.  _ And Ferdinand deems that a reason for joy if nothing else is.


	3. day three

Ferdinand returns from the training of the evening with his clothes pasted to his sweat-matted skin and an all-too familiar ache chewing his palms. He rakes a hand through his hair, perspiration clotted between his fingers, braided through his curls like clammy currents in a river, barren and swaying in time to the waltz of flames billowing from his scalp.

He yanks the door to his bedroom in the Monastery open and dives into the room with relief whistling in his stomach. It’s been one of those days where he’d wanted nothing more than for it to fade into starlight and dark since dawn first broke, the type of day that had been so rare before but was becoming distressingly common since the war began--

Ferdinand nudges the door shut behind him idly, only to feel the air in his chest blustering out, surprise crashing against his ribs, as if his heart has swiped the clothes of a fist.

Hubert von Vestra is  _ in his bedroom. _

In ideal circumstances, if Hubert  _ had  _ to be in his room at all, he would be propped on the bed, sprawling and shirtless, pallid chest rumpled with light muscle, the glow of evening leaking in through the window to adorn his chest just right--

( _ He shouldn’t think like that, he shouldn’t think like that-- _ )

_ Ahem. _

In ideal circumstances, Ferdinand would be able to tuck himself safely into this tiny pocket of the world, would be able to wither behind his door and breathe himself back into bloom in solitude. But then, nothing has been ideal since this war brewed to life, blistering the content with the grill of its touch.

Hubert is very much  _ not  _ lounging on Ferdinand’s bed--and he is painfully clothed, swathed in all his flapping fabrics as usual. And he’s kneeling on the floor, shuffling through the bits of armor that litter Ferdinand’s room in hunching piles. Hubert chucks a helmet over his shoulder, and it hurtles to a stop against Ferdinand’s abdomen.

He solidifies his grip on the damn thing, slings it under his arm, and booms a cough. Hubert startles, rearing back before skidding around to face Ferdinand. His eyes are very much not folded with their usual, cautious squint; no, they’re wide open, as if they’d lurched forward in their sockets in Hubert’s shock, stewing their familiar venomous green, even as violent astonishment and humiliation clash in their waters.

Ferdinand ignores the restless tic of his heart in his chest. He clears his throat again, dumping the helmet onto the floor at his feet. “Hello, Hubert. I, er...do not remember inviting you in here. What are you doing, may I ask? Besides raiding my belongings, of course.”

Just enough annoyance pierces into his tone to make Hubert blanch. His face contorts, a flush trembling in his cheekbones. “Don’t overreact. This isn’t a raid. I have no use for all this ridiculous armor, believe me. I’m…”

Ferdinand drills his lips together, feeling the complexion startling from his face, waiting for Hubert to continue.

Eventually, he does, after spearing his hands into his pockets and tracing his shoe against the floor for an agonizing few moments. “Well,” he begins, before huffing a cough. There’s still pink blood darting in his cheeks. Ferdinand’s trying to keep his heart from plugging his throat, even if it leaps with giddy endearment at Hubert’s apparent humiliation. “Well. I was... _ fine _ . I thought you had a dark tome of sorts in here. I’ve been sensing something very suspicious about you as of late, and I wanted to confirm a theory. That is all.”

Surprise wedges into Ferdinand’s throat before his amusement can. “P-Pardon? Me, suspicious? Certainly not. Perhaps tired, but not suspicious. What do you even mean?”

Hubert contemplates another moment--Ferdinand notices one hand clawing at the other, the emotions trickling into his eyes as if his usual mask has sprung a leak. “I...I thought you were...no, I  _ think  _ you are...hiding something. I think you’ve been performing a ritual of sorts. On me. I think you’re trying to sabotage me somehow, and it’s been effecting my performance as all-devoted slave to Lady Edelgard, so I had to come take a look for myself.”

Ferdinand permits his concern to coil between his brows. “You are not her slave, Hubert. Also, you are not allowed to investigate my room because of such a crazy suspicion. I have never even touched a tome, don’t be--”

Hubert plows forward, staggering, as if he’d been propelled against his will by an invisible force. His hands clamp down on Ferdinand’s shoulders, tighter than any metal shackle he could fear, perhaps even crunching the bone. His expression is an unreadable canvas, a thousand different colors splattered across the surface, all at war with one another. The only emotion Ferdinand can make out is searing desperation.

It doesn’t suit Hubert. Ferdinand’s body has sagged, limp and useless, in Hubert’s grip. One brush of his fingers, and it’s as though every remaining swig of strength left in him has been wrung out. 

He can feel bruises budding on his shoulders. He barely cares; he’s too busy trying to scrub the confusion from the lenses he stares Hubert down with, trying to read a language of feelings in Hubert he has never even heard of.

“If it’s so crazy,” Hubert seethes, breath pelting Ferdinand’s face in a fog, polluted by rage like gasoline, “then tell me why I can’t stop thinking about you.”

__

Ferdinand has no response. His body is numb, bones rattling, veins dissolving, nerves bursting into flames.

__

“It’s like I’m obsessed. And it can’t be my fault, so whose is it?  _ Yours.  _ It must be you. So tell me what you’ve done to me, you imbecile, before I  _ make you  _ tell me.”

__

The threat jolts his mind awake. Ferdinand crumples back into his skin, and the first thing he’s aware of is the grin that hooks the sides of his mouth. He lets it pull, lets the next words flutter from his tongue with weightless wings. “Hubert. I...I am suddenly very much in the mood for tea. Care to join me? You can drink as much coffee as you would like.”

__

Hubert’s somehow been able to douse his expression. He even coaxes his eyes back into their usual glare, although he looks nearly relieved despite it. He wrenches his hands from Ferdinand’s shoulders--relief swirls through Ferdinand’s blood--all the tension in the room pops at once, nearly overwhelming in its sudden absence “You know what, Ferdinand? I think you’re too stupid to be a dark sorcerer, come to think of it. And yes, fine. I’ll lend you my company. I could certainly use some coffee.”

__

And Ferdinand can barely keep his legs from prancing as he leads Hubert to tea. Adrenaline flares in his chest anew--it’s as though his gloomy mood from before has been dusted aside, forgotten with the bruises he can still faintly feel prickling his shoulders, and a giggle twinkles on his tongue. He’s not even affronted with Hubert’s casual insult.

__

So maybe there’s a chance he’ll see Hubert’s shirtless form glowing before him after all. He wouldn’t bet it will be soon, but the  _ chance _ keeps his boots from dragging for days to come.

__


	4. day four

Ferdinand can’t look at Hubert, can’t burrow down into his eyes like he would in any other situation like this, can’t swaddle himself in their icy embrace this time. He somehow can’t rip his eyes away from what scares him most about the circumstances; the roaring wound on Hubert’s stomach, spewing blood in all directions, frothing around his navel in nauseous crimson.

A minute ago, they’d been on the battlefield, and Ferdinand, of course, had been singularly focused on the threat dancing before him, twirling in a storm of glinting steel and static adrenaline. He’d been so immersed, he’d quite nearly missed the tumble the presence beside him took. But then, a second later, the sound carved through his impenetrable focus: the slightest whimper, the weakest growl. 

And then Ferdinand had lost control of his body utterly. He felt himself lurch out of the span of his foe’s spear, toppling down to his knees. He had tugged Hubert to his chest, as he’d never been allowed to before. 

He had cradled him, closer,  _ closer,  _ as he flung himself and his lover to safety beyond this swamp of blood. (If fleeing makes him a coward, then he’s a coward. He doesn’t give a damn. Hubert’s  _ blood  _ curdles on his jacket. He’s a coward with a banshee stowed away in his skull and a rampage gnawing his heart to bits.)

Now Hubert’s smoothed out straight--legs inclined, arms knotted sloppily over his stomach even as Linhardt grumbles at the unconscious man for covering the wound while he’s trying to heal it, and he looks a bit like a corpse--on the floor of the healing tent closest by the battlefield. Blood fountains from the wound. 

It frays past Hubert’s lips in broken tendrils. 

It’s everywhere. It’s caked in Ferdinand’s  _ eyes _ . It’s smeared across his mind, rusted over his heart, killing him,  _ killing him. _

Salt whines on his tongue, splintering the rest of his senses. 

He can’t see. He can’t breathe.

He finally manages to tear his eyes away from the spitting wound in Hubert’s stomach, focused now on wrangling back the urge to vomit. Bile floods his mouth, but when his lips spring apart, against his volition, what escapes is a wheeze for breath and a muddle of thoughtless words.

“Dear Goddess...Goddess...let him  _ live.  _ Please, please do not kill him. If you have an ounce of charity left in your heart, spare him. Spare him.”

His fingers bundle in his lap, eyelids plummeting over his vision. Blood snakes down his cheeks--no, no, those are tears. Hubert is the one with his face inked with red. Not Ferdinand.

_ Oh, if only it were Ferdinand, blustering through his clenched teeth on the floor. If only Hubert were the one who was terrified but safe. _

Ferdinand worms around, desperate to face the other way. He cannot risk seeing Hubert again. Seeing the ferocity of the wound and its rivers.

He can’t.

“Let him live. Please, please, please. He cannot die, he simply cannot. We need him. Edelgard needs him.  _ I need him so badly.  _ Please, Goddess. Please.”

The words wilt in his throat. A sob shrinks past his lips. 

Ferdinand shivers in silence, curled away from the man he loves, every inch the coward he always strove to never be, and hatred strains his chest with a grip like thorns on clothing. Hatred for himself, for the other side of the squabble, for this  _ pathetic  _ war Edelgard has sworn to win.

She will never win without Hubert.

No one will win again, in a world with Hubert.

“Permit him a few more years. Permit  _ us.  _ There...is so much I have never said...So much he needs to hear…”

His voice slopes into nothing a second later. The only sound is the rustle of his sobs and Linhardt methodically stringing together his strange cords of magic.

Ferdinand loses track of the time he spends weathering away in that tent, wanting to claw the blood from his hands and his eyes and his lover, wanting to drown them both in light, wanting to scrub away their every sorrow, but unable to find the will to even begin.

So, when he feels cold fingertips combing across his wrist, the shock that twists in his chest snatches the air from his lungs, leaving behind only that muted whisper of anger he feels.

It puffs suddenly from a whisper to a scream.

He whirls, skin needled with his surprise, a reprimand or a cry or yet another prayer writhing for his tongue’s control when his eyes scuff against Hubert’s.

Hubert’s  _ open  _ eyes.  _ Blinking  _ eyes.

_ Blinking eyes _ .

Relief pulses through Ferdinand, happiness hopping at the corners of his consciousness.

“Hubert...Is it? Are you truly…” 

He can’t even finish asking the question, can’t even punctuate it. Hubert’s mouth twitches into the slightest of smirks, despite the pain crinkling the skin of his face, and he nods.

Ferdinand bursts into tears once more. He doesn’t even bother scrambling for control over himself. Any semblance of control knows he needs this moment alone with Hubert.

Linhardt knows, too; he inches for the exit before diving free.

Ferdinand hacks a chuckle out past his tears.

“Are you...oh, no, what a ridiculous question,” Ferdinand gurgles, voice bubbling with sadness and desperation and joy, all united in a stupidly complex brew. “Of course you are not okay. Silly me. Tell me, however: will you be, Hubert? Or w-will you be leaving me behind, like the foolish terror you are?”

Hubert laughs--a wobbling, broken sound, soiled by blood and anguish--then replies, “Of course I will be alright. Can’t be leaving Lady Edelgard behind, now can I? And someone has to keep you and your half-brained antics in check. Who better for the job than me?”

Ferdinand swoops down for a kiss, latching on a little too long. “Nobody, Hubert,” he admits. “Nobody can do the job quite like you, my love.”


	5. day five

It’s a meeting like any other, at its core, and Hubert knows that, he _does_. And yet, the knowledge is still trying to flutter away, tempted by the winds corkscrewing through his chest. He only barely manages to keep his head pinned to his shoulders--barely manages to staple his feet to the ground. At the moment, sharing a tea table with silly Ferdinand von Aegir, it’s a war in itself to keep reality snagged between his fingers. Ferdinand’s eyes are windows, taunting Hubert, trapped on one side of their glass, with utopia wagging on the side he cannot touch.

Hubert hooks his eyes to the table beneath his fingers, glaring into his coffee as Ferdinand warbles about something or something else. Hubert’s trying to tap back into the discussion, but his head’s swirling, intermingled with shreds of his heart like Autumn leaves, crunched by the gnashing teeth of the seasons.

Ferdinand clears his throat suddenly, and Hubert’s body revolts, stomach writhing, skin sprouting legs and staggering across his bones at an agonizing crawl. He slowly coaxes his eyes back to Ferdinand’s. 

Back to those windows mocking heaven with the reflections etched within their panes.

Hubert’s throat prickles. He slants his cup against his lips a little desperately, wrangling down a mouthful of the bitter fluid before looking at Ferdinand again.

He tries to focus; eases his cup back onto the table; bundles his fingers; means to slice his eyes into slits and only halfway succeeds.

“W-What were we talking about?” he says, and his voice _dips_ , dammit, jarring like a carriage hopping hazardously down an unpaved road. “Surely something pointless. It’s you, after all.”

Ferdinand, of course, ducks before the question must be his to answer. All he says is, humiliatingly enough: “You seem to be distracted today. What has you so occupied?”

Something like hurt snakes between Ferdinand’s flawless brows. He seems nearly upset, that Hubert isn’t focused on him. (What he doesn’t know is, Hubert is only not immediately focused on him because he’s sparring with this crazy idea that darts through Ferdinand’s eyes, which he can’t seem to stop analyzing, because he’s going insane for this jester of a man.)

Hubert’s heart heaves into overdrive in his chest.

“It’s...nothing. Well, nothing I’m fool enough to disclose to you.”

“Come along, Hubert. For the love of the Goddess, we are _friends_. I know the only cordial company you are accustomed to is Edelgard’s, but I am willing to listen to you. Care to indulge me with what bothers you so?”

“No,” Hubert grunts, and Ferdinand, the _tease_ , lets his mouth melt at the corners, so he’s visibly sulking. His bottom lip--glinting in the light of the room, as if glossed with liquid crystals--slides over his top. The man is _pouting_ , and Hubert is so dizzy with bafflement the cursed idea that torments his mind with its thumping mockery trips from his tongue.

There is nothing refined about what he says. “Are you...courting me?”

Ferdinand’s mouth unhinges, lips swinging apart to gape. Light winks off of their tender skin, as if embedded there, caught in frozen gems of sunshine, and is Hubert making another _metaphor_ about this? And how come he can’t stop knitting his adoration like this, even if the needles have unseamed his brain a thousand times over?

“What in the world…? Why would you--? Why, I never…”

But not one of these thoughts gets finished. Not one seems to beckon a conclusion. There hasn’t been a yes or a no yet. There hasn’t been any firecrackers dumped into this shell that Hubert is, to wreak havoc _or_ to stain everything rosy pink, the hue of hope.

“Well, you’re always treating me to coffee, and asking me to spend time around you, and, if I’m not mistaken--and I’m not--this is how most men woo their princesses.”

For the sheer effect of it, Hubert fires a glare at the sky, making a show of rolling his eyes at the foolish, _feverish_ romantic gesture.

Ferdinand’s lips flit at the corners; emotions bolt down his face in storms.

“You think...that is what this is?” And he has the gall to fling a laugh across the table. It craters Hubert’s chest. It shudders fissures through his heart, not that he’d admit it. “It is not, Hubert, my dear. This is how I charm a friend. I would never...I would never try to initiate something romantic between us without knowing you wished for the same. N-Not that I...that is to say…” He laughs once again, as if that’s enough to explain himself, to soothe the furrow of nerves lodged in Hubert’s veins.

“Good,” Hubert eventually chokes. “I would never want something so disgusting with you, Ferdinand. A friendship is barely tolerable, let alone a...relationship. I was just making sure you weren’t trying to insinuate something. Good. This means we stay friends, I guess. Good.”

If he echoes the word again, perhaps it’ll soak into his blood. Perhaps it’ll spiral to his soul, where it belongs, and maybe it’ll cuddle up to it. Maybe, if he wills it, he really will find this agonizing disappointment _good_.

Ferdinand’s expression strains; it ticks between a scowl, to a pensive frown, to a smile Hubert can nearly believe, no matter how much he prays it’s fake. If it’s fake, then maybe…

_No. Stop it._

_Ferdinand does not want you like that._

“Y-Yes. Good indeed. I do treasure you as a friend, my dear Hubert. Now...back to the topic at hand...:” And Ferdinand surges right back to politics with either enthusiasm or vengeance.

And Hubert swears, Ferdinand’s eyes were plucked right from the night sky, sprinkled throughout with faded diamonds just for good measure.

_Stop. It._

_He doesn’t have any interest, and he never will._

But Hubert pretends, for the rest of the meeting, that this is a courtship nonetheless, simply because that makes it easier on both men involved.


End file.
